A news item was published in the Tamil paper, Thinakural of Oct 7,2000, under the heading ‘Nine Upcountry women given bail’. It states that 9 young women between the ages of 15 to 20 years, were arrested by the Mulleriya Police and produced in the Colombo Courts on 20th September. Their names are given and also the name of the male who was the guide: they are all Tamils. The police allege that they had been brought for a ‘slavish’ purpose, while the women’s guide, Perumal Rajendran, has stated that he was escorting them on their journey to visit the zoo. They had been released on bail.

It is common knowledge that there are racketeers in the plantations, Tamil males, who have made a good trade. They bring young women and hand them over as servants in the town and urban areas. Within about 2 months these women leave on some pretext or other and their guide takes them to a new abode. These women are helpless, and require some sort of employment, unfortunately as most of them do not have Identity Cards, they are at the mercy of unscrupulous persons.

In a news item in the Thinakural of 24th November under the heading. ‘Female Tamil student raped and pushed down the hill’ it is reported that in Ella a 17 year old Tamil female student had been waiting in the evening for the Bandarawela bus to go home, some people who came in a van had given the girl a lift saying that there won’t be any bus services that day. Half way they had turned the van into another road. The girl had felt something wrong and asked them to drop her at that place. They had threatened the girl and taken her to a remote area and raped her. With the intention of killing her after sexual harassment, they had taken the girl in the van and had pushed her down the precipice from the running van, at a ‘U’ turn. But fortunately the girl had fallen on to a tree and had been firmly holding the branch of the tree till dawn. At dawn, she was able to get down the tree slowly and had been able to climb up to the road. The girl was treated at the Bandarawela hospital. The Bandarawela Police arrested a person in connection with this incident. The Police also have seized his van. When the suspect was brought to court the Judge ordered him remanded.

According to a news item in the English paper of 6th December, under the heading, ‘They left her and walked away’, the Kuruwita correspondent reports a pathetic case of an elderly mother who had been neglected by all her seven children, two sons who are doctors, two sons who are teachers and two sons successful businessmen. All living luxurious lives in Ratnapura. She had sought relief from the police. Police Inspector Vijaya Gunaratna had summoned the six sons to the police station but could not convince anyone of them of their duty by the parent. Wiping her tears, the mother had walked away, appealing to the Gods, ‘Is this what I get in return from my children’.

"Yes mother, ‘the old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfils himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world’,"
S. Thambyrajah